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Academics have issued a serious warning to anyone who watches sexual content on the internet

Porn sites are collecting data about their users’ sexual preferences and passing this highly sensitive information onto companies who cannot necessarily be trusted with the information.

That’s the warning from researchers who analysed 22,484 pornography websites to find that 93% leak user data to a third party.

The team said ‘marginalised groups’ are at particular risk from the data leaks, especially if they want to keep details of their sexuality private.

The information gathered by porn sites ‘create numerous opportunities for violence, blackmail, and discrimination, and constitute a clear and present danger to those who consume online pornography’.

And turning on Incognito Mode won’t protect you, because information gathered from other sources online could be matched with the porn data to identify people who log on to x-rated site.

Hackers could use this information in blackmail or revenge porn. There is also the chance it could be used in the future if society becomes more repressive and tyrants begin to target people based on their sexuality.

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‘Private access to online porn as important to a queer, feminist, sex-positive politics of gender and sexuality, and central to community-building and free and safe sexual expression,’ the team added.

The academics said the ‘extent to which gender and sexual interests could be inferred from site URLs demonstrates the troubling potential for the tracking and disciplining of sexual interests labeled non-normative’.

They found that almost half of all porn websites have web addresses which ‘expose or strongly suggest’ that the site content ‘includes or targets one or more specific gender or sexual identities or orientations’.

They highlighted bestialitylovers.com, boyf***momtube.com and hdgayf***.com as particularly revealing of their visitors’ sexual interests.

This famous screen promises protection – but porn sites have other ways ot getting your data

The team added: “The singularityy of porn data and the characteristics of typical porn websites’ lax security measures mean this leakiness poses a unique and elevated threat.

‘We have argued everyone is at risk when such data is accessible without users’ consent, and thus can potentially be leveraged against them by malicious agents acting on moralistic claims of normative gender or sexuality.

‘These risks are heightened for vulnerable populations whose porn usage might be classified as non-normative or contrary to their public life. Finally, we argue porn sites currently operate with an unethical definition of sexual consent considering the sensitive sexual data they hold.’

As well as handing information to third parties, porn sites hold information including birthdays, IP addresses and email addresses which can ‘prove irresistible’ to hackers – who are attracted by the ‘comparatively lax security’.

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Attacks on famous free porn sites have already resulted in users’ information being splashed across the internet, whilst a site relating to ‘extreme anal dilation and fisting’ was also hacked in 2016.

The paper is called ‘Tracking sex: The implications of widespread sexual data leakage and tracking on porn websites’ and was written by researchers from Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania.